What was the impact of dairy goats distributed by the Crop-Goat project in Tanzania?

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Korir, L., Kidoido, M. and Teufel, N. 2016. What was the impact of dairy goats distributed by the Crop-Goat Project in Tanzania?. Poster presented at the Tropentag 2016 Conference on Solidarity in a Competing World—Fair Use of Resources, Vienna, Austria, 19–21 September 2016. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

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In Tanzania most goat production is extensive and aimed at selling live animals with limited direct impact on food security and nutrition. The Crop and Goat Project (CGP), implemented in Kongwa and Mvomero districts, aimed at improving income, food security and nutrition of poor households by promoting dairy goat production integrated with cassava and sweet potatoes. Within the project area, village leaders generated a list of 70 potential goat recipients in each of the 4 intervention villages, based on resources and capacity. Out of these, 108 households received a total of 229 dairy goats over the project period. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impacts of introducing dairy goats on income, assets and food consumption. A baseline survey at project initiation was conducted among 552 households in 2012, including all households which later received goats. Out of these, 373 households were interviewed a second time in 2014. This sample includes 98 of the beneficiary households, 102 potential beneficiary households, not having received a project goat, and 120 non-potential households in project villages. Analysis of the baseline data revealed that beneficiary households were different to potential and non-potential households in terms of non-livestock assets and food consumption. Therefore, the study applies a difference-in-differences (DD) approach in combination with propensity score matching to overcome the observed bias for estimating the impact of the project intervention. Results from the econometric analysis show the interventions had no significant effect on livestock or total income. Unsurprisingly, the project does appear to have significantly increased household ownership of small ruminants and total livestock. We also find a significant increase in the food consumption score of the survey respondent in project households, but no significant effect on the consumption score of the index child. Finally, we see a significant increase in the respondent's frequency of consuming dairy products, though none for the index child. Results suggest that dairy goats in this context have a stronger impact on household nutrition than on income although a better understanding of intra-household food allocation is required to support child nutrition.